Labour Day weekend in Montreal
I arrived in Montreal Saturday morning, and got to FL’s around 11. We met Maggie downtown at 1 and went to Vieux-Port (Old Montreal, on the water) and wandered around for a while, just taking everything in. We had lunch on the patio of some bistro down there, and there was a street performer just outside doing some kind of act. We couldn’t see him that well for the audience, nor hear him, so I don’t really know what he was doing, lol. But the crowd seemed to like it! Later, we went to the IMAX theatre and saw “Mysteries of the Nile,” which was about the first trip down the entire length of the Nile from its source in Ethiopia all the way to the Mediterranean Sea. It was fascinating. Then we ended up at Maggie’s for dinner, and spent the evening chatting and eating. Okay, and making fun of 80s music videos, because this retro thing was on and it was damned funny. Hee. On Sunday, FL and I went shopping for a while in the early afternoon before I finished getting ready for the concert and she dropped me off at the subway station.
The weather was perfect. It was a beautiful sunny day, but not hot, and it cooled off as the sun set into a lovely evening with a breeze. I smuggled 2 disposable cameras into the concert, and as it turned out, I needn’t have bothered stuffing them into my bra, because security? Wanted our water bottles, and that was it. Both i’marebel and I were carrying decent-sized purses and they never even checked us at all. So that was somewhat annoying, because I would have brought my crappy little digital if I’d known ahead of time, or even borrowed a better one - I saw people with really good digital cams, and a couple of videocameras as well. However, as my online little sis pointed out, had I attempted that then of course they would have gone security Nazi on me and I would have had everything confiscated, LOL. Hopefully those who had better equipment are the online sharing type. ;-)
We had a better view than the photos would suggest. Not real close; we got so far in, and had we gone much closer we wouldn’t have been able to see the giant screen, so we would have had to go all the way up to the front in order to see anything. Neither of us were really up for the amount of shoving and general assholishness that would require, so we vetoed the idea and stayed put. Actually, we moved slightly more to the right side than we’d wanted to because we had to shift twice. The first time, for the gaggle of young teen girls whose dad chaperone kept lifting them up onto his shoulders and thereby blocking our view entirely; and the second time, for the super drunk guy who kept whispering in my ear and any second now was going to grab my ass, going by the sliding waist touches. Yeesh. I was not in the mood to go around bitchslapping anyone so we moved instead, lol. Most of the pix that came out were of the screen rather than the stage. I could see the stage clearly enough, albeit with teeny people lol, but with the low light level I guess the contrast just wasn’t great enough to produce decent shots. However, I did get some good ones of the screen, about 24 shots worth keeping altogether. I cropped out the heads and night sky, lol. The ground was actually sand, not grass, so it was surprisingly comfortable to stand on for such a long time.
Given that I’d already seen them play on this tour, and knew the entire setlist and all the antics, etc. ahead of time, I had honestly expected that this show wouldn’t be as good. Happily, I was mistaken and it was indeed just as much fun, despite the lack of variation. I ran out of film during “Minority,” which was the last song of the concert proper before the encore. The two big changes were the addition of a couple of verses of “Stand by Me” in the middle of “Shout,” while the band was lying on the stage, and the fireworks! Holy crap, they must have set off somewhere between $50-100,000 worth of fireworks! There were several instances during the show where a short burst of fireworks added extra punctuation to the flashpots and firepots on the stage, and at the very end, when Billie Joe hit the last note of Good Riddance, the real fireworks began went for a good five to seven minutes - and they were not skimpy, either. Mike and Tré were standing behind Billie bowing and waving for the last little bit of the song (Billie sings it solo with just the electric guitar) and then afterwards they turned to walk off stage as a unit. The second big burst of fireworks went off right then, and the cameras still had them onscreen and you could see Billie duck and flinch, LOL. It was funny. :D
Getting out of a park on an island with a single subway station was an exercise in patience, let me tell you. Although I had totally forgotten the energy of taking public transportation after a concert. People are still on a high, and singing, chanting…it’s fun. I took i’marebel to the main station where she could find a cab to get back to her sister’s. FL, Maggie and I had been in Berri station the day before and it’s really huge and confusing, especially if you don’t speak/read French, so I didn’t want her getting lost! Then I got back on the train and headed back to FL’s. We were going to pull an allnighter, since we had to leave the house just past 6 am in order to get me to the bus to the airport, but I caved around 3 and we got a couple of hours of sleep, lol.
It was a great trip. I definitely want to go back to Montreal soon and really explore more of the city; there’s so much there. And even two days was enough for me to get a lot more comfortable speaking French. The first couple of times, I totally choked, lol. And I think part of the problem is that when I ask for something in French, it sounds fine, so the other person rattles off information at lightspeed expecting from my original speech that I will be able to understand them, and I can’t always. The other thing is the accent, of course. Not surprisingly, Montrealers have a fairly strong Quebecois accent, and we are taught Standard French (aka Parisien) in school so that is how I speak, and what I understand best speech-wise. But I was feeling more confident by the time I left. Makes me wish I could spend an extended amount of time in a French environment, really; I’ve known for a long time that that’s the only way I’ll ever become truly comfortable speaking the language. Such is not to be, though, at least for now.
On with the pictures! They’re in basically chronological orde, and I linked because it's easier and then there's no page distortion. :-)
If you squint, you can see the Drunken Pink Bunny on the stage, lol.
Burst of fireworks.
Someone threw a cheap tiara onstage, and Billie put it on for a few minutes.
Tiara 1
Tiara 2
Hitchin’ a Ride with a little self-love.
Hand out
Hand in
Stage lights in blue.
Water gun! Normally, these are Super Soaker water guns. However, with being at an outdoor venue, I guess there’s some leeway and these suckers were attached to actual garden hoses, lol. No one at the front would have stayed dry!
Guitar theatrics.
The audience guitarist for “Knowledge.” She was a tiny thing - Billie had to shorten the guitar strap a tonne for her, lol. But she and the bassist and drummer could all play well enough!
Itty bitty Mike shot, LOL.
Wizard puppet - someone had him bopping along to “King for a Day,” lol.
Speaking of…fun with hats!
More fun! Jason White, the unofficial fourth member of the band (2nd guitarist).
Stage lights in green, with a screen dissolve - just a cool shot.
Tré with tongue. I was really pleased with this one; it’s classic Tré, lol.
Billie flung off his tie and ripped open the first couple of buttons on his shirt. You can see a fair bit of his chest tat in the second pic.
Buttons
Tattoo peeking
“Stand by Me” down on the stage.
Stage lights in purple, with a crown-&-cape shot.
Random squished shot of Billie singing.
Mike smiles!
Billie profile with guitar.
Billie close-up with harmonica.
The weather was perfect. It was a beautiful sunny day, but not hot, and it cooled off as the sun set into a lovely evening with a breeze. I smuggled 2 disposable cameras into the concert, and as it turned out, I needn’t have bothered stuffing them into my bra, because security? Wanted our water bottles, and that was it. Both i’marebel and I were carrying decent-sized purses and they never even checked us at all. So that was somewhat annoying, because I would have brought my crappy little digital if I’d known ahead of time, or even borrowed a better one - I saw people with really good digital cams, and a couple of videocameras as well. However, as my online little sis pointed out, had I attempted that then of course they would have gone security Nazi on me and I would have had everything confiscated, LOL. Hopefully those who had better equipment are the online sharing type. ;-)
We had a better view than the photos would suggest. Not real close; we got so far in, and had we gone much closer we wouldn’t have been able to see the giant screen, so we would have had to go all the way up to the front in order to see anything. Neither of us were really up for the amount of shoving and general assholishness that would require, so we vetoed the idea and stayed put. Actually, we moved slightly more to the right side than we’d wanted to because we had to shift twice. The first time, for the gaggle of young teen girls whose dad chaperone kept lifting them up onto his shoulders and thereby blocking our view entirely; and the second time, for the super drunk guy who kept whispering in my ear and any second now was going to grab my ass, going by the sliding waist touches. Yeesh. I was not in the mood to go around bitchslapping anyone so we moved instead, lol. Most of the pix that came out were of the screen rather than the stage. I could see the stage clearly enough, albeit with teeny people lol, but with the low light level I guess the contrast just wasn’t great enough to produce decent shots. However, I did get some good ones of the screen, about 24 shots worth keeping altogether. I cropped out the heads and night sky, lol. The ground was actually sand, not grass, so it was surprisingly comfortable to stand on for such a long time.
Given that I’d already seen them play on this tour, and knew the entire setlist and all the antics, etc. ahead of time, I had honestly expected that this show wouldn’t be as good. Happily, I was mistaken and it was indeed just as much fun, despite the lack of variation. I ran out of film during “Minority,” which was the last song of the concert proper before the encore. The two big changes were the addition of a couple of verses of “Stand by Me” in the middle of “Shout,” while the band was lying on the stage, and the fireworks! Holy crap, they must have set off somewhere between $50-100,000 worth of fireworks! There were several instances during the show where a short burst of fireworks added extra punctuation to the flashpots and firepots on the stage, and at the very end, when Billie Joe hit the last note of Good Riddance, the real fireworks began went for a good five to seven minutes - and they were not skimpy, either. Mike and Tré were standing behind Billie bowing and waving for the last little bit of the song (Billie sings it solo with just the electric guitar) and then afterwards they turned to walk off stage as a unit. The second big burst of fireworks went off right then, and the cameras still had them onscreen and you could see Billie duck and flinch, LOL. It was funny. :D
Getting out of a park on an island with a single subway station was an exercise in patience, let me tell you. Although I had totally forgotten the energy of taking public transportation after a concert. People are still on a high, and singing, chanting…it’s fun. I took i’marebel to the main station where she could find a cab to get back to her sister’s. FL, Maggie and I had been in Berri station the day before and it’s really huge and confusing, especially if you don’t speak/read French, so I didn’t want her getting lost! Then I got back on the train and headed back to FL’s. We were going to pull an allnighter, since we had to leave the house just past 6 am in order to get me to the bus to the airport, but I caved around 3 and we got a couple of hours of sleep, lol.
It was a great trip. I definitely want to go back to Montreal soon and really explore more of the city; there’s so much there. And even two days was enough for me to get a lot more comfortable speaking French. The first couple of times, I totally choked, lol. And I think part of the problem is that when I ask for something in French, it sounds fine, so the other person rattles off information at lightspeed expecting from my original speech that I will be able to understand them, and I can’t always. The other thing is the accent, of course. Not surprisingly, Montrealers have a fairly strong Quebecois accent, and we are taught Standard French (aka Parisien) in school so that is how I speak, and what I understand best speech-wise. But I was feeling more confident by the time I left. Makes me wish I could spend an extended amount of time in a French environment, really; I’ve known for a long time that that’s the only way I’ll ever become truly comfortable speaking the language. Such is not to be, though, at least for now.
On with the pictures! They’re in basically chronological orde, and I linked because it's easier and then there's no page distortion. :-)
If you squint, you can see the Drunken Pink Bunny on the stage, lol.
Burst of fireworks.
Someone threw a cheap tiara onstage, and Billie put it on for a few minutes.
Tiara 1
Tiara 2
Hitchin’ a Ride with a little self-love.
Hand out
Hand in
Stage lights in blue.
Water gun! Normally, these are Super Soaker water guns. However, with being at an outdoor venue, I guess there’s some leeway and these suckers were attached to actual garden hoses, lol. No one at the front would have stayed dry!
Guitar theatrics.
The audience guitarist for “Knowledge.” She was a tiny thing - Billie had to shorten the guitar strap a tonne for her, lol. But she and the bassist and drummer could all play well enough!
Itty bitty Mike shot, LOL.
Wizard puppet - someone had him bopping along to “King for a Day,” lol.
Speaking of…fun with hats!
More fun! Jason White, the unofficial fourth member of the band (2nd guitarist).
Stage lights in green, with a screen dissolve - just a cool shot.
Tré with tongue. I was really pleased with this one; it’s classic Tré, lol.
Billie flung off his tie and ripped open the first couple of buttons on his shirt. You can see a fair bit of his chest tat in the second pic.
Buttons
Tattoo peeking
“Stand by Me” down on the stage.
Stage lights in purple, with a crown-&-cape shot.
Random squished shot of Billie singing.
Mike smiles!
Billie profile with guitar.
Billie close-up with harmonica.
